You might remember the crazy rowcover structure I stuck to the fence with velcro, described back in this post. It resulted in decent protection. Above you can how the diva cucumber plants looked as of August 4, 2010. That's pretty good considering my cucumbers were a yellow spotted, shriveling up, powdery mildewed mess by Aug. 9th in 2009. There were just two major problems: 1) the Agribon didn't stick to the velcro very well, so even after I tried stapling it, it was tough to peel the cover off for harvest without ripping the velcro from the fabric and 2) I think some especially intrepid cucumber beetles were able to get to the plants through cracks in the fence. Still, it was good enough protection that the plants stayed healthy for a longer time. I was a bit disappointed with the Diva's production though - I probably picked less than 10 cucumbers, even with 4 plants. This year I'm going to try sewing the velcro to the Agribon with a wide zig zag stich, and plant Cool Breeze cucumbers. We'll see if they're any better.
Here is one of the cucumbers I harvested, along with some other garden veggies & berries picked that day. When they did grow, they were great! Really smooth and not bitter at all.
I made it into one of my favorite summer dishes - cold peanut soba noodles. I also shredded the carrots and turnips from the garden in it too. Turnips are suprisingly sweet when shredded raw!
No comments:
Post a Comment